


Inferno

by Blona222



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Destiny, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Getting Together, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Romantic Fluff, Season 3 Spoilers, Shirbert, Slow Burn, Tragical Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 02:37:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21402790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blona222/pseuds/Blona222
Summary: What if Anne and Gilbert's talk by the fire had gone differently. What if Gilbert had actually asked Anne about her feelings, and didn't leave? // Set in S3E08 // Alternative
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 304





	Inferno

**Author's Note:**

> This last episode absolutely murdered my soul, and I don't know how I'm supposed to cope until episode 9, so I wrote this fanfic. The scene by the fire was so beautiful, and I just wish it went differently. Keep in mind I wrote this very quickly. If you like, please leave a comment or kudos, much love to you all :)

The forest was dark, the only light to show him the way coming from the constellations above. It also happened to be a cold night, colder than it had been for quite a while. As he tried to find his friends, his mind participated in a full-on battle with none other than itself. 

The Sorbonne. It was only one of his wildest dreams, to go there. To study there. To read medical journals under the campus trees and eat pain au chocolat every morning until he tired of it. He could become a real doctor, provided with the technology and medicine to save lives rather than being forced to helplessly declare the loss of them. 

He could even possibly imagine Paris with Winifred. It wouldn’t be bad, by any means. They would go to tea and she would help him study for exams and he would stroll the streets with her on his arm. But it wouldn’t be like with her…

The trees quickly began to spread apart, and suddenly Gilbert was easily able to spot his classmates, surrounded by fire and all heavily fixed on someone standing on a ledge of rocks.

Gilbert began to walk over to them. He felt almost awkward joining them in celebration when he hadn’t even gone to take the exams with the rest of them, and when he was possibly going to be leaving the country to study to do something hopefully much more than all of this. But he needed to be there. He needed to at least ask. Ask the question that had been on his mind ever since they fixed eyes on each other while dancing in the schoolhouse.

As he got closer and closer, things became clearer. There were bottles hanging from people’s limp hands, and the air seemed to be heavy with warmth and a lazy kind of carefree happiness. He also realized that the person garnering everyone’s attention was none other than his Anne. 

“...does it take a pirate so long to learn the alphabet?!” she yelled to everyone, her voice deep and scratchy in a way he’d never heard before.

Everyone yelled back almost immediately, “Why?!”

“Because he spends years at C!” 

He almost wanted to laugh. But he couldn’t bring himself to.

Everyone else, though erupted into laughter, a mixture of giggles and howls and chuckles coming from the girls and boys alike, half of them doubled over. Even Diana, who Gibert thought to be furious at Anne, smiled widely.

Anne took two pieces of hair and framed her face with them, bringing them together under her chin before starting again. “What’s the difference between a hungry pirate and a drunken pirate?”

“Tell us!” they all exclaimed.

“One has a rumbling tummy and the other’s a tumbling rummy!” Near everyone exploded at this, laughing loud enough to make the gods up above stir from their beds of cloud.

The crowd finally dispersed and thinned out, everyone spreading out to dance and skip around wildly, hands held between them. Gilbert even thought he heard someone yell, “Let’s play a game of truth or dare!” But all he could focus on was Anne, because now she was alone.

She stood on that ledge and took a deep inhale, the cold crisp air of the night filling her lungs before she grinned and lifted her arms above her head. Gilbert took a gulp of air, but it wasn’t enough to prepare him for what would happen next. 

With no music other than her friends laughter and drunken singing, Anne began to dance, her head tilted towards the stars and her hands reaching for the sky. The light falling from the moon illuminated her milky, pale skin, and almost made Gilbert want to get addicted to it. The crackling fire from behind her lightly outlined her entire body and it filled in the gaps between strands of her wine-colored hair, making it look like an ever-blazing inferno.

He looked at her like she herself, one night took the stars and placed them in the sky, one-by-one. Her dance was merciless upon his heart, and all the while she looked absolutely ethereal. 

He wasn’t there when all of the boys and girls of the Avonlea school passed bottles of alcohol between them, and yet he couldn’t help but feel intoxicated.

Gilbert cleared his throat lightly, and Anne came to a sudden stop, swaying a little on her feet. “Oh!” she said.

He was silent for a second, still staring at her with his mouth open before he formed words, “May I speak with you, please?”

She just stared at him silently, until she moved slowly and tried to get down off of the ledge, Gilbert lending his hand to help her. The second their hands met, a spark jolted him and he shook her hand off. It was all too much. 

He led her over to sit on a log, a bit further away from everyone else. He said to her, “Anne, I need you to just listen for a moment. Please.” 

“Of course,” she lightly whispered.

“So this evening, I went to Winifred’s house in Charlottetown. For dinner with her and her parents.” At this, Anne gave a wordless nod. “We were talking about what I might like to do in the future, and so of course I brought up my desire to be a doctor again. And then her father asked me to join him in the parlor, away from Winifred and her mother. Then he just laid it out on a silver platter. All of it.”

“Im sorry? Laid...what out on a silver platter?”

“The Sorbonne. Paris. The money to do all of it. My future, if I want it! Even permission...to propose.”

Anne sat there, looking helpless and confused, not saying a word.

“I have no idea what to do,” Gilbert told her.

“Well you don’t want to be just a country doctor. The Sorbonne, it’s your dream, and it’s practically set in stone from here. Winifred. Well Winifred is lovely and her parents are nothing but supportive.” She let out a disbelieving laugh, nothing more than a breath on the wind. “I don’t understand. What’s holding you back?”

He couldn’t help but just stare at her. Seated at the fire like that, rum running through her veins, her hair tousled, and her lips looking so soft and inviting, she looked like she had just strolled out of a dream. 

“Just...one thing,” he replied to her.

Anne dazed at him in confusion before her eyes lit up in understanding. “I-I don’t know what to say. What am I supposed to-? And everyone, everyone is...and now you just...and I’m pirate and we never even...and Paris is, and you are never going to find- that, that much I’m certain of. So how...can’t...I...we.” She was breathless.

“I-I’m sorry,” she started again. “I just really don’t understand. Are you truly talking about me, Gil?”

He laughed lightly, it coming out shakier than he’d expected. “It’s you. It’s always been you, Anne Shirley-Cuthbert. Ever since you broke that slate over my head I’ve never been able to get you out of my head. Or my dreams. Or my heart. You were completely unexpected, but you came walking into Avonlea with your little red braided pigtails and your limpid gray eyes and made me rethink everything I ever thought I knew. I guess that somewhere, somewhere along the way, I just fell hopelessly in love with you.”

A tear trailed down Anne’s cheek, and she raised a shaky hand to wipe it. “Oh, Gil.”

“Do I have it completely wrong, Anne. Do you not feel the same way? Was I just imagining that dance practice, or the night on Miss Stacy’s porch?”

“Of course not,” she sighed. “I think I’ve felt the same way for- for longer than I know.” He let out a sigh, and took a step closer to her. “But,” she said. “I can’t let you give up your dreams for me. Me? I’m just me. I trip over my feet and talk too loudly and too much about things that are much too controversial. You have a real chance to go to the Sorbonne. To marry a lovely girl who’s beautiful and elegant and has something more to offer to you than sonnets and days at Green Gables.” At this point, tears were streaming freely down her face, never-ending.

“Anne.” “I don’t think you understand. I could never have with Winifred what I have with you. She’s lovely, and witty, and her family could offer me a life of what I used to think I wanted.”

“I-”

“But,” he said. “I don’t think going to the Sorbonne is truly what I need. I think that what I need is someone who pushes me to my limit every single day. Someone who participates in banter with me and who makes me want to laugh at myself rather than push myself down. Someone who climbs trees in dresses and becomes friends with foxes. Someone who makes people rethink the societal norms they’ve been taught since the day they were born. Someone who has burning red hair and sets my heart alight. I believe that what I truly need is you, Anne.”

“And if that means I have to stay and be a ‘country doctor’ then so be it. I can learn to make remedies with honey, and I can work around the limits of not being in a city with more resources. I will gladly stay and put up with Mrs. Lynde’s endless gossip, the small-mindedness of the townspeople, and other boys fawning over my Anne-girl. Because hey,” he looked directly into her eyes. “I like the view anyways.”

At last, he lifted his hand to Anne’s cheek, wiping her tears with the pad of his thumb. “So, what do you think Carrots?”

“I think...I think I would very much like to kiss you, Gilbert Blythe.”

And so Gilbert placed his lips on hers. Her lips brushed his like the soft flutter of butterfly wings, and Anne inhaled his breath, thinking to herself that yes, she could do this forever. When they broke apart, they rested their foreheads against each other and sighed. Gilbert suddenly opened his eyes and laughed bright and clear. 

He took her in his arms and lifted her up, twirling her around in circles and pressing kisses to her skin everywhere. Her cheeks, under her jaw, her nose. Oh how he loved her button nose. Gilbert, though, lost his balance quickly and they both fell to the ground, which only resulted in them laughing even harder. 

All of their friends quickly came rushing over. Ruby nearly screamed. Jane gasped. And Josie asked them, “Heavens. Are you two okay?!”

Gilbert and Anne just looked at them, and then at each other. “We are most certainly okay. Thank you guys.”

Anne had always thought that the big words were the most important, and that she needed them to express her big thoughts. But, now, she supposed that perhaps the smallest words held the most depth. We.


End file.
